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Cutting of Turf Launches Ground-breaking New Community Theatre

Cutting of Turf Launches Ground-breaking New Community Theatre

Tuesday 3 Jul 2018

Moreton Hall is delighted to announce that the celebrations to mark the end of the school year on Saturday, June 30th included the literally groundbreaking start of our latest and most exciting ever project as the first turf was cut on the Holroyd Community Theatre.

Laura Holden, daughter of founding Patrons Bill and Julie Holroyd, cut the turf on the new theatre. “Performing arts are at the very heart of Moreton Hall’s broad curriculum and we are thrilled to be supporting this ambitious project. We hope the theatre will greatly benefit the local community and enrich the education of the pupils at Moreton.”

The long-time vision of principal, Jonathan Forster, the Holroyd Community Theatre will provide a new and vibrant Arts space for North Shropshire and the Welsh borders. Moreton Hall is proud of the part we play in the creative life of our local community, not least through drama initiatives such as Face2Face and our musical partnership with the North Shropshire Orchestra. In November, as part of Oswestry’s Wilfred Owen Festival, Moreton Hall will sponsor and host the award winning ‘Grist to the Mill’ Theatre Company with two performances of their show, ‘The Unknown Soldier’, for local schools and our wider community.

Although our current venue, the Musgrave Centre, has hosted an array of wonderful school shows, the Holroyd Community Theatre will provide a purpose built, state of the art performance space designed to accommodate everything from the razzle dazzle of musical theatre to the intimacy of a one man show and will host everything from visiting theatre professional theatre companies to a wealth of productions by local people. Over £1.25 million of the £1.45 million total has already been reached, not least through the generosity of our patrons, Bill and Julie Holroyd, and with £200k to go, there are plenty of opportunities for families to play their part by sponsoring one of the theatre’s seats.

With the Holroyd Community Theatre due to be completed by Summer 2019, this is going to be an exciting 12 months for the school and the community as we watch our new theatre take shape and prepare to host the first productions in Autumn 2019.